Successful Surgery

We've had a busy few days since surgery, but I'm glad to report it went well! Levi is recovering as well as one might expect from major abdominal surgery, and we were able to leave the hospital today.

Glad Levi's parents and brother have been here with us

Surgery Results

I'll be the first to admit that my jokes about Levi having a c-section were woefully inadequate in describing his procedure. It turns out that surgery to remove a baby that is meant to come out is much easier than removing an organ intended to stay inside your body for life.

In addition to the tumor, the surgeon removed Levi's left adrenal gland, left kidney and some nearby lymph nodes in only three hours. While more was removed than we had hoped for, we were very pleased to hear that the doctor thinks he got all of the cancer in that area and there should be no major long-term effects.

The removed mass was sent off for testing, and the pathology report should return anywhere from 1-5 weeks from now. It will confirm whether or not all the cancer was removed, which will help doctors decided if additional treatment is required.

The incision turned out much larger than we expected

Clothed and walking laps just 2 days after surgery

What's Next

The surgical team opted not to remove the tumor on Levi's left lung due to the complicated nature of such a surgery, so the plan is to do radiation on it when we return to Houston for follow-up appointments six weeks from now. The doctor explained that the high doses of radiation given over the course of three days will be just as successful as surgical removal with only a 10% chance of recurrence. Plus, there are virtually no side effects! 

Levi will also resume his chemo pills in a few weeks after his body has time to heal from surgery. The doctor said they like to continue them for 1-2 years after surgery to make sure any remaining cancer cells are killed and to prevent recurrence. This news is pretty devastating, since the pills have made Levi feel like he has the flu all the time. We are hopeful that the side effects won't be as bad now that the tumor is gone, but only time will tell. 

OKC-turned-HOU friends Catherine & Ryan came to visit in the hospital

Continued Prayer Requests

• A good pathology report that indicates all the cancer around the tumor was removed
• Successful radiation of the lung tumor (to be scheduled first week of March)
• Resolved inflammation of the lymph node near Levi's shoulder, indicating it is indeed benign, as doctors suspect
• Better tolerance of the chemo pills

These sweet church friends came all the way from OK to be with us during and after surgery. So grateful for them!

Surgery Details & A Tumor Shower

We are exhausted after 5 (FIVE!) pre-op appointments today that started at 6:15 a.m., so forgive this brief but practical update about Levi's surgery tomorrow.

His surgery will begin at 7:30 a.m., and it is expected to last 5 or more hours, depending on how invasive it becomes. The plan is to only take out his left adrenal gland along with the tumor, though his left kidney, pancreas, spleen and stomach are all fair game to be affected in some way. Pray with us that only the adrenal gland would have to be removed! The doctors seemed hopeful that this is possible, but they can't tell for sure until they're in there.

Levi will stay in the hospital for 3-4 days, and then we will be in Houston another 3-4 days before he can travel home. Pray with us for the shortest stay possible so he can make it to the daddy daughter dance on Feb. 1! Of course Levi's healing is #1 at the moment, but it would mean so much to both Nora and Levi to make that dance, if even for a short time.

That's all we know for now, so I'll leave you with pictures from the "tumor shower" our church small group threw for us before we left, complete with Target registry! We have the best friends.

Why I Drive

The truth is- and this is the thing that I’ve been afraid to admit even to myself until right now- that I’m afraid to die. It’s not the dying that scares me- no, I’ve made my peace with that- even the pain that it may involve. What scares me is what I’ll miss out on. Walking Nora down the aisle and and lying in a tent with the kids listening to the pitter-patter of the rain and stroking my wife’s hair. How much life will I not get to experience if cancer takes me too early?

And in this fear everything becomes so precious. Every time Nora giggles I just treasure it, because it may be the last time. Every basketball game or family dinner at home together or listening to Wyatt pray- it’s all so precious.

I could die on the operating table two days from now. Or complications a few days after that could take me. Or maybe I’ll beat it this time but it’ll come back with a vengeance years from now and I lose the battle that time. I just can’t escape the reality that this could be it. It was easier early on in my treatment, because there was still lots of time and options left to deal with this, but now all my eggs are pretty much in this basket. And it’s hard not to play out images in my head of things going wrong- my kids growing up with a different father and all kinds of things. If this doesn’t work then I’m going to have to start talking to doctors about how much time I have left.

And this is what keeps me up at night- why I am driving around at two in the morning on a bitter cold night listening to country music I don’t even like.

But it doesn’t always seem so bleak. Sometimes I’m able to believe that even if I do die, things will work out like they should. But that’s a pretty tiny percentage of the time. Increasingly often, I’ve been experiencing this thing called faith. I know, it’s a stupid word that’s been pirated by those who would use it as a a meaningless byword to describe something they don’t understand, and it irritates me even now. It’s such Christianese that I just want to puke when I hear it.

But Doug talked on Sunday about faith and Abraham and I began to actually understand what it means. More specifically, Doug talked about how Abraham had faith in things not yet seen, and it was credited to him as righteousness. So faith is believing something that you shouldn’t. And it occurred to me that there’s a whole long list of stories in the bible of people who have faith in a lot of stupid things. People who believed that God was on their side when they were going to war, even though, if you think about it, the people on the other side were probably saying exactly the same thing. People who believed that God wanted them to possess this certain piece of land even though there were already people on it who weren’t really any worse than the they were. People who believed God would give them babies when, biologically speaking, that really shouldn’t be happening. And on an on, story after story, God seems to be trying to tell us that He really values this faith thing, cheap as the word may have become these days.

And I think that maybe now, sitting up in the middle of the night because I can’t sleep for thinking about all the terrible things that might occur two days from now, God is asking me to believe in stupid things too. He’s asking me to believe that good still happens in a broken world and that, at the end of all of this, there’s more beauty to be found than we can even imagine. He’s asking me to believe that He is for me and that I am loved despite my deepest doubts and that He can see me through even this. He’s asking me to believe that He is so good that one day we’ll look back on this shit world and it won’t even matter that much in comparison to the glory that surrounds us. We’ll be drenched in light and coolness like a summer sunrise, early sunrise just a minute or two before the sun appears.

I think that’s what’s being asked of me, and I sort of believe it. God I hope I get to hear that pitter-patter on the tent one day.

Surgery Time

We have a date! Surgery has been scheduled to remove Levi's tumor on the 24th in Houston. We'll travel there on the 22nd, have several pre-op appointments on the 23rd and then stay in Houston for 1-2 weeks, depending on how Levi is recovering. I'll plan to list specific prayer requests after we meet with the surgeon next week.

In the meantime, I wanted to share an updated meal train signup. My mom will be taking care of the kids while we are gone, and I know it would be helpful for her to not have to plan meals. Thanks so much for blessing her with food while we are all out of our routine.

Sign up here